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Welcome, vicegerent of the mighty King, Z340

Introduction

Welcome, vicegerent of the mighty King, Purcell’s first Ode, dates from 1680 and was written for the return of King Charles II to London, which the diarist Luttrell records as having taken place on 9 September. The Ode does not appear in the Buckingham Palace manuscript, into which Purcell collected many of his early Odes, but two other sources survive, both in the British Museum, demonstrating a remarkable piece of work from a composer just twenty-one years old. The chorus writing is spritely and full of life, the solo vocal writing sensitive and imaginative and the string writing especially fine. Purcell was already the author of a considerable bulk of church music at the Chapel Royal.

The Symphony is confident, richly harmonized in its first section, and showing the influence of Pelham Humfrey and Purcell’s teacher John Blow in the dotted rhythms of the imitative second section. Purcell’s mastery of technical devices is also apparent for, rather than simply repeating the second section of the overture as an instrumental section, he does this whilst superimposing the opening chorus over it, adding a new bass line and giving the original bass as an obbligato to the cello. After such a compositional tour de force comes a touching duet for alto and bass ‘Ah! Mighty Sir’, full of startling harmonic language, and capped by a charmingly scored string ritornello. The reference to ‘Augusta’ is again an alternative for ‘London’. The chorus ‘But your blest presence now’ dances along, and leads into a glorious string ritornello—the first of dozens with which Purcell graced his Royal Odes over the next fifteen years. In ‘Your influous approach’ Purcell echoes the tenor soloist with the full ensemble and is inspired, as always, by the mention of the word ‘harmony’: he leaves the real pictorialization for ‘Apollo with his sacred lyre’ to the continuo players’ imagination as a coda to the movement. ‘When the Summer, in his glory’ is delightfully scored for two sopranos, and the following chorus ‘All loyalty and honour be’ an example of how a simple, homophonic setting can be as effective as the most intricate of choruses. The tenor solo ‘Music the food of love’ is a jewel, with its simple melody repeated and harmonized by the full chorus before the continuo modulates the music up a fourth and the strings are given a ritornello of great charm and beauty. The final chorus of Purcell’s first Ode is deliberately kept simple.

'A treasure house of shamefully neglected music. Over nine hours of wonderful invention … this major recording achievement must be an irresistibl ...'By any yardstick these are life-enhancing works' (CDReview)» More

Ah! Mighty Sir, if you to such long absence are inclined,
Augusta will not stay behind,
But will your guardian light pursue
And steal from this cold air to follow you,
As birds when Autumn is begun
Follow the journey of the sun.

When the Summer, in his glory,
Was delightful, warm and gay,
All was but a Winter’s story
While our Sovereign was away:
Now decrepit Winter’s coming,
Yet the presence of a King
Makes him young and still a-blooming,
Turns his Autumn into Spring.

Music the food of love,
The gentle reliever of care,
Gift of the Power above,
Please with a cheerful air.

Touch with a joyful sound
The sense of a mortal divine,
May his days and his power abound
By the power of the Une and Trine.

His absence was Autumn, his presence is Spring
That ever new life and new pleasure does bring,
Then all that have voices, let ’em cheerfully sing,
And those that have none may say: ‘God save the King’.